This relatively early work by Correggio was painted around 1515–17 for Melchiore Fassi and was installed in the oratory of Santa Maria della Misericordia in the town of Correggio. Its emotional restraint and use of strong local color contrasts with the highly charged expressiveness of Correggio's mature paintings. Especially notable is the soft lighting of the figures, set off against a dense copse of trees, on one of which is a woodpecker.

The saints can be identified by their emblems: keys (for Saint Peter), a dragon (for Saint Martha), a pot of ointment (for Mary Magdalen), and fetters (for Saint Leonard).

One of Correggio’s most significant early works, this altarpiece was painted for a church in the artist’s hometown (from whence his name derives) to the east of Parma. It was commissioned by a local patron, Melchior Fassi, and hung in his chapel in the hospital church of Santa Maria Verberator, usually known as Santa Maria della Misericordia, until 1690. Unraveling the early history of the painting has been complicated by the fact that Fassi drew up three wills (1517, 1528, 1538) with diverse requests for burial rights, bequests, and altarpieces, all of them later than the probable date of this painting based on stylistic features. To further complicate matters, the wills involved five separate churches (for transcriptions, see Gould 1976, doc. 4, pp. 177–80). In the first two wills Fassi stated his intention to commission an altarpiece representing the same saints pictured here—Peter, Martha, Mary Magdalen, and Leonard. However, at the time of Fassi’s death he had given up on these more elaborate plans and decided to be buried at Santa Maria della Misericordia, where he had long had a chapel dedicated to Saint Martha. It thus seems likely—though unprovable—that the wills involved another altarpiece that was never executed and that he had commissioned Correggio’s painting earlier—probably around 1514—and installed it in his chapel at the Misericordia (on these complicated issues see especially Ekserdjian 1997). It must be more or less contemporary with another early altarpiece by Correggio, the Madonna and Child with Saints Francis, Anthony of Padua, Catherine of Siena, and John the Baptist (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), which is documented to 1514–15.

Each of the saints represented must have had a meaning to Fassi or another member of his family, but the dedication of Saint Martha, Mary Magdalen’s sister, is particularly interesting. According to the Golden Legend, she, her sister, and their followers made their way to France and Martha dwelled in a deep forest, where she saved the populace from a dragon that she tamed by a sprinkle of holy water from her aspergillum and then attached to her girdle as we see in the painting. It is her story that provides the rationale for the deep forest with twisted tree trunks (with a bright red woodpecker in one of the branches) forming a backdrop to the gathering of saints, a remarkable scene probably inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s work in Milan, which was also the inspiration for the Magdalen’s idealized beauty.

The painting belonged to the Ashburton family in England in the nineteenth century and the Museum first considered acquiring it in 1908, when Roger Fry wrote the following insightful description of it: "It is a great altarpiece, one of the largest he ever did. . . . The colour is extremely beautiful and the handling has all Correggio’s mystery and magic. . . . On the other hand, Correggio had here a problem which was not perfectly suited to his temperament, and a certain displeasure, which one experiences at first sight of the picture is, I think, due to that. He had to treat four saints in an altarpiece and was bound to keep something of a hieratic symmetry which was not natural to his personal method of conception. He has managed to solve it with extraordinary ingenuity so as to keep the hieratic symmetry and yet give to each figure a subtle movement in keeping with his more emotional feeling for character" (Bayer 2003).

Lucio Zuccardi. Cronaca. [before 1690] [Biblioteca Municipale di Reggio Emilia; see Refs. Pungileoni 1818, Arb 1962, and Gould 1976], discussing the paintings in Santa Maria della Misericordia, writes that the Fassi altarpiece is by Correggio; a marginal note adds that it has been ruined because of fears that it would be removed from the church.

Pastoral visit. August 25, 1704 [excerpt published in Ref. Monducci 2004, p. 65], lists it in the oratorio of Santa Maria della Misericordia.

Sebastiano Resta. Correggio in Roma. [ca. 1709], f. 10v. [published in Ref. Popham 1958], mentions a work with four full-length figures made by Correggio for the Oratorio della Misericordia, Correggio, in about 1518, noting the influence of Raphael's "Saint Cecilia" (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna), sent to Bologna in that year [sic].

Gerolamo Colleoni. Letter to consigliere D. Venanzio de-Pagave. June 26, 1776 [published in Ref. Pungileoni 1821], mentions a Saint Peter and other female saints in the church of Santa Maria, Correggio, as the only painting by the artist left in the town.

Inventory of the contents of the Oratorio of Santa Maria della Misericordia. September 27, 1782 [Archivio Opere Pie di Correggio, "Congregazione generale," "Atti di Protocollo," 1781–1784; excerpt published in Ref. Monducci 2004, pp. 65–66], made on the occasion of the suppression of the confraternity and the closing of its respective oratorio, includes this picture among seven altarpieces in the church.

Michele Antonioli. Letter to Girolamo Tiraboschi. June 6, 1785 [see Ref. Arb 1962], writes that there is no trace of the Saint Martha.

Luigi Lanzi. Storia pittorica della Italia. 2, part 1, Bassano, 1795–96, pp. 297–98 [4th ed., 1822, vol. 4, pp. 61–62; English ed., 1828, vol. 4, pp. 89–91; German ed., 1831, vol. 2, pp. 304–5; new Italian ed., vol. 2, 1970, p. 228], states that the painting cited by Resta had been removed from the Misericordia and acquired by Armano, while a copy showing Saint Ursula instead of the Magdalen had replaced it [see Ref. Resta 1709]; notes that the forms are more softly modelled than those of the Saint Francis altarpiece (1514–15; Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden); mentions that many private homes in Correggio contain very old copies of the picture.

Giovanni de' Brignoli. Sopra un quadro di Antonio Allegri . . . Milan, 1815, pp. 24–25 n. 1, notes that two works by Correggio had been acquired from Armano by Marescalchi, one in the first manner and the other in the second manner.

Luigi Pungileoni. Memorie istoriche di Antonio Allegri detto il Correggio. 1, Parma, 1817, pp. 59–64, believes that the original version, with the Magdalen, was probably commissioned by Melchiore Fassi in 1517; mentions two copies in Correggio, one in the Gerez collection, the other [probably the one described in Refs. Tiraboschi 1786 and Lanzi 1795–96] in San Francesco, with Saint Ursula holding a banner substituted for the Magdalen, and which he attributes to the seventeenth-century painter Giuseppe Orazio Capretti.

G[ustav]. F[riedrich]. Waagen. Works of Art and Artists in England. London, 1838, vol. 2, pp. 267–69, as in the collection of Lord Ashburton; notes that the attribution to Correggio is often questioned, but himself firmly believes it to be an early work by Correggio; identifies the saints as Peter, Margaret, Mary Magdalen, and Anthony of Padua; mistakenly states that it was formerly in the Ercolani (Hercolani) collection, Bologna.

Ernst Joachim Förster. Handbuch für Reisende in Italien. 4th ed. Munich, 1848, p. 195 [see Ref. Zeri and Gardner 1986], notes that it was originally in the Misericordia, then in the collection of Armano, and presently in that of Lord Ashburton; dates it to the artist's twentieth year [i.e., 1509].

Mrs. Jameson. Sacred and Legendary Art. London, 1848, vol. 1, p. xxx, notes that the presence of these four saints (whom she correctly identifies) indicates that the picture was destined for a charitable institution.

Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. Unpublished manuscript. 1865 [Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, 2033/12274/IV; see Refs. Gardner 1972 and Zeri and Gardner 1986], includes notes and several sketches of the painting after seeing it in the collection of Lord Ashburton in London.

Jean-Paul Richter. "Un tableau de la jeunesse du Corrège." L'art 18 (1879), pp. 210–11, calls it an early work, painted about 1515, at the time of the "Christ Taking Leave of His Mother" (now in the National Gallery, London, no. 4255).

Introduction by R[obert]. H. Benson inExhibition of Pictures, Drawings & Photographs of Works of the School of Ferrara-Bologna, 1440–1540. Exh. cat., Burlington Fine Arts Club. London, 1894, p. xxxii, calls it an early work.

Corrado Ricci. Antonio Allegri da Correggio: His Life, his Friends, and his Time. New York, 1896, pp. 104–6, ill. between pp. 106 and 107, agrees with Morelli's dating of about 1513–14; identifies it as the Misericordia altarpiece but disassociates it from the work mentioned in Fassi's wills.

Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 153–55, ill., dates it probably 1517–19 on stylistic grounds, and states that "it seems reasonable to accept it as the one specified by Fassi".

Riccardo Finzi. Il Correggio nel suo tempo. Modena, 1957, pp. 14, 17, tentatively dates it 1514, while also tentatively connecting it with the will of 1517.

A[rthur]. E[wart]. Popham. Correggio's Drawings. London, 1957, pp. xvi, 11, 16, 88, identifies it with the picture mentioned in Fassi's will of 1517 and notes that it is said to have come from the Misericordia.

Sebastiano Resta. Correggio in Roma. n.p., 1958, pp. 68–69 nn. 53–54, identifies it with the painting in the Misericordia that Resta saw in 1690.

D[etlef]. Heikamp. "I viaggi di Federico Zuccaro, II." Paragone 9 (November 1958), p. 56 n. 62, publishes a letter from Federico Zuccaro to Pierleone Casella of about 1607–8 in which Zuccaro mentions a painting ("alcune figure del Correggio"), from the context apparently in the church of San Domenico in Correggio, that he had cleaned; lists pictures by the artist known to have been in Correggio at that time, including this one in the Misericordia.

Stefano Bottari inEncyclopedia of World Art. 3, New York, 1960, col. 819, identifies it with the picture mentioned in Fassi's will of 1517.

Myron Laskin Jr. "The Early Work of Correggio." PhD diss., New York University, 1964, pp. 21–24, 132–34, no. 13, fig. 13, dates it shortly before the "Madonna with Saint Francis" in Dresden, assuming that the Fassi documents are either incomplete or incorrectly transcribed.

Giovanni Copertini. "Il Correggio - Parte III - La vita e le opere - La formazione e l'evoluzione stilistica del Correggio." Parma per l'arte 15 (September–December 1965), p. 160, fig. 138, identifies it with the picture mentioned in Fassi's will of 1517 and finds it stylistically characteristic of Correggio's work of about 1518; relates the composition to that of the "Marriage of Saint Catherine" in the Detroit Institute of Arts and mentions the Leonardesque smile of the Magdalen.

Everett Fahy. "A Portrait of a Renaissance Cardinal as St. Jerome." Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 59 (1970), p. 13, fig. 10, dates it 1517, stating incorrectly that it was painted for a church in Parma and noting the influence of Raphael's Saint Cecilia altarpiece.

Cecil Gould. Letter to Everett Fahy. December 7, 1971, writes that he does not associate it with Fassi's will of 1517 and adds that the picture "has nothing to do with Raphael's 'S. Cecilia,' and that such superficial resemblance as they have is due to an ultimate common source in Perugino".

Cecil Gould. The Paintings of Correggio. London, 1976, pp. 21–22, 25, 37–38, 42–43, 177, 232–34, pls. 8–9 (overall and detail), dates it earlier than the Dresden "Madonna with Saint Francis" of 1514–15; believes that it was painted for the Misericordia.

David Alan Brown. "The Literature of Art: A New Book on Correggio." Burlington Magazine 119 (December 1977), p. 861, disagrees with Gould's [see Ref. 1976] dating of the picture.

John Shearman. "Correggio and the Connoisseurs." Times Literary Supplement (March 18, 1977), p. 302, reviewing Ref. Gould 1976, disagrees that this picture was painted before the Dresden "Madonna of Saint Francis".

Cecil Gould. "Letter: A legal point connected with Correggio." Burlington Magazine 120 (June 1978), p. 397, argues against Brown's dating to the period 1517–18 [see Ref. Brown 1977] and points out that Fassi's two subsequent wills render the one of 1517 "legally invalid and therefore art-historically irrelevant".

John Pope-Hennessy. "Roger Fry and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Oxford, China, and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on his Eightieth Birthday. London, 1984, p. 234, notes that Fry recommended this altarpiece repeatedly for purchase, the last time in December 1909, but it was not purchased until 1912.

Federico Zeri with the assistance of Elizabeth E. Gardner. Italian Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, North Italian School. New York, 1986, pp. 8–11, pls. 64–65 (overall and detail), date it between 1515 and 1517, after the Dresden Saint Francis altarpiece; note that it was already in the church of Santa Maria Verberator, known as the Misericordia, in Correggio, by 1690, but do not feel that this rules out its having been commissioned for San Quirino after December 1517.

Andrea Bayer. "North of the Apennines: Sixteenth-Century Italian Painting in Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 60 (Spring 2003), pp. 55–56, 58–59, fig. 38 (color), ill. p. 38 (color detail), dates it between 1514 and 1516, leaving open the question of whether it was painted before or after the Dresden altarpiece; notes the influence of Leonardo.

David Alan Brown. A Pietà by Correggio in Correggio. Milan, 2003, p. 32.

Maddalena Spagnolo inCorreggio e l'antico. Exh. cat., Galleria Borghese, Rome. Milan, 2008, pp. 92–93, no. 4, ill. (color), dates it about 1516 and believes it was made for the Fassi chapel in the Misericordia; rejects the connection with Raphael's "Saint Cecilia"; rejecting her earlier suggestion [see Ref. 2005], now believes the work mentioned by Zuccaro in a letter of 1607–8 refers to some other unknown painting [see Ref. Heikamp 1958].

David Ekserdjian inCorreggio e l'antico. Exh. cat., Galleria Borghese, Rome. Milan, 2008, p. 169, under no. 47, mentions it in the entry for the drawing of four saints in the Uffizi, which he dates about 1530.

A copy attributed to the seventeenth-century painter Giuseppe Orazio Capretti was made to replace the original, but has been in the church of San Francesco, Correggio, since at least 1817. In the copy, Saint Mary Magdalen is replaced by Saint Ursula holding a banner. Pungileoni (1817) mentions a second copy then in the Gerez collection, Correggio, and there were apparently other old copies in private homes in the town (Lanzi 1795–96).